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The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Christian photographer who declined to photograph a same-sex union violated the state’s Human Rights Act and one justice warned the photographers were “compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives.”

In 2006 Vanessa Willock asked Elaine and Jonathan Huguenin, owners of Elane Photography, to photograph a same-sex “commitment ceremony” in the town of Taos.

Huguenin and her husband declined the job because their Christian beliefs were in conflict with the message communicated by the ceremony.

Willock found another photographer at a cheaper price but nevertheless filed a complaint with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission accusing Elane Photography of discrimination based on sexual orientation. She was later found guilty and ordered to pay thousands of dollars in fines....

.....Bosson said the case provokes reflection on what the nation is about.

“At its heart, this case teaches that at some point in our lives all of us must compromise, if only a little, to accommodate the contrasting values of others,” he wrote.

He said the Constitution protects the rights of the Christian photographers to pray to the God of their choice and following religious teachings, but offered a sobering warning.

“But there is a price, one that we all have to pay somewhere in our civic life,” the justice wrote. “The Huguenins have to channel their conduct, not their beliefs, so as to leave space for other Americans who believe something different. That compromise is part of the glue that holds us together as a nation, the tolerance that lubricates the varied moving parts of us as a people.”....

So what if they were already booked on that day, or had planned to take off that day? We are heading down a dark path where people have a RIGHT to force businesses to provide services, or goods. We have a right of association and contract, if we do not wish to enter into a contract with someone we should not and cannot be compelled by the State to do so, yes even discriminating against blacks or other minorities applies as well, if someone is racist and does not wish to hire a minority then why should the State force said owner to hire someone they will not like, why would a minority wish to work for someone that doesn't want to hire them in the first place?

So what if they were already booked on that day, or had planned to take off that day? We are heading down a dark path where people have a RIGHT to force businesses to provide services, or goods. We have a right of association and contract, if we do not wish to enter into a contract with someone we should not and cannot be compelled by the State to do so, yes even discriminating against blacks or other minorities applies as well, if someone is racist and does not wish to hire a minority then why should the State force said owner to hire someone they will not like, why would a minority wish to work for someone that doesn't want to hire them in the first place?

It's not people who have the right that the judge is creating, it's the state. This is a precedent that allows the state to dictate private contractual agreements, and it will only go one way. I guarantee that a gay photographer will not be compelled to photograph a Catholic or Baptist ceremony if he doesn't want to step into a church.

It's not people who have the right that the judge is creating, it's the state. This is a precedent that allows the state to dictate private contractual agreements, and it will only go one way. I guarantee that a gay photographer will not be compelled to photograph a Catholic or Baptist ceremony if he doesn't want to step into a church.

There is no need to engage the hypothetical. All of this was predicted by those mean old white men decades ago when the right to freedom of association was trampled by racial and religious minorities via "civil rights"' laws. You lost the right to not do business with gay people when you lost the right to sell your house to the person of your choosing, to serve only those with whom you wish to associate, and to control your property and your labor.

There is no need to engage the hypothetical. All of this was predicted by those mean old white men decades ago when the right to freedom of association was trampled by racial and religious minorities via "civil rights"' laws. You lost the right to not do business with gay people when you lost the right to sell your house to the person of your choosing, to serve only those with whom you wish to associate, and to control your property and your labor.

You made your bed, now lie in it.

Do I get to choose who lies in it with me, or would that be discriminatory, too?

I have always had problems with civil rights laws that dictated private conduct. The problem with Jim Crow was not that private bus companies or lunch counters discriminated, it was that state laws demanded that they discriminate. Eliminate de jure discrimination, and economics would eliminate de facto discrimination, as the various boycotts demonstrated.

And the hypothetical does matter. If the gay couple refused to hire a photographer because he was a Christian, would the court compel them to hire him and pay damages for discrimination? After all, the court has said that we must not be allowed to act on our prejudices...